I’m 27 years old. I was working full time hours and extremely active, doing boxing twice a week, running twice a week and gym every day until the point the mandates came into play. I was the fittest and healthiest I’d ever been. I had a bad kidney infection a while ago which caused septicaemia, a blood clot in my arm and I’ve had my appendix out. But I’ve never had any problems with my lungs or heart ever before.
I didn’t want it in the first place, but I got the vaccine because a work opportunity came up that I couldn’t refuse. With the mandates in full force, I had to make the decision to go ahead and get the Novavax vaccine which I thought, after the research I had done, was going to be the safest option out of them all.
I got the vaccination on the 1st March 2022 in my left arm. Half an hour later I got really bad kidney pain, I had a sore arm and fatigue. I went home and I just chilled out. I rested thinking this was going pass. The next day I woke up and my kidney pains were getting
increasingly worse but only in the right one which is the kidney that has always been a bit of an issue for me. It felt almost like I had another kidney infection but there were no other symptoms other than a stabbing pain. I didn’t feel sick or run down or anything, just the kidney pain which lasted a week.
I then started getting pain in my fingers which created a numbness and tingling down my forearm. That also lasted a week. I started drinking pine needle and dandelion tea and the pain started to dissipate around the same time for my both kidney and my hand.
Things started getting better after about a week and a half and I felt actually pretty good until I woke up one day and I wasn’t able to take in a full breath. I had a few heart palpitations which I thought was strange, but I wasn’t worried because I occasionally experience a little bit anxiety. I kept on going with my life as usual trying to keep up with the level of fitness I had built over the years, but I was struggling to reach that level, because I was unable to breathe properly. I started experiencing chest pains.
As the week progressed, I was at work and I had to leave early. My chest pains started to intensify to the point where I had to go to hospital. veen though I was struggling to breathe it was more because of the great deal of pain I was in that I wasn’t able to handle.
On arrival at the hospital, the doctors were more than helpful and I can’t say anything bad about them at all. They tested me for COVID and within 10 minutes my temperature was rising and my hands were clammy and going numb. They did my bloods , ECG and a chest X-ray. Based on my ECG results, the doctor said that I probably had pericarditis. The doctor at the hospital said that they would report my reaction to be from the Novavax vaccine. I was then discharged pretty quickly.
Four days later after my hospital visit, brings me to today, the 21st March 2022. Today I saw my GP who gave me the official diagnosis that I have Pericarditis, prescribed me colchicine and gave me an exemption for one year. He said that if I get worse, I will have to go and get an echocardiogram.
Currently I’m still experiencing chest pain, shortness of breath and am struggling to just function normally in my day to day life. It hasn’t gotten better, it just remains the same as before and with no end in sight.